How InstructionalDesign started their logo design journey

Summary

We have an existing logo that was designed by an amateur. We are expanding and need a professional looking logo. Once we get the logo, we are running a fast-track for a trade show booth sign, so we need a winner fast. We will then upgrade everything from our website to printed materials. So it is important that we have professional logo we can use as the basis of our materials.

Company name

What inspires you and how do you envision the design for your business?

We have an existing logo at http://www.peopleinsure.com. it was designed by an amature and we are expanding and need a professional compemporary appealing design. We are not tied to what we've done, so I want good creative ideas to be able to win.
Once we get the logo, we are running a fast-track for a trade show booth sign, so we need a winner fast. We will then upgrade everything from our website to printed materials over the next 6 months.
We are willing to consider one of two approaches:
1. Redesign of existing element to upgraded to a professional look
2. New and fresh ideas that will help us really upgrade our image.
We are a training and development consulting firm that helps organizations in insurance industry accelerate their success by improving the performance of their people, processes and technology to achieve bottom line results. Our products fall into one of 4 categories: training, consulting, workflows and outsourcing.
Our old tag line was Performance Improvement. Bottom Line Results. We are replacing it with the new tag line: “Accelerate Your Success”
I’m going to provide a lengthy description to, hopefully, help the winning design be achieved more quickly.

Wants

- I'm not tied to what we've done, so I want good creative ideas to be able to win. I don’t want my descriptions to inhibit creative ideas. As long as you hit the must have’s, I’m open to consider any great design, and hope to be surprised with something beyond what I could have thought of.- Upgrading existing logo --
Whether you are going to submit an upgrade to the existing logo, or a new fresh/professional design, these thoughts may help. - What I do like about our exiting logo – - Our initials Pi in a circle makes an icon that is easy use as a stand-alone in other graphics when we don’t want to use the full logo.
- We like having a contrasting color in the logo so that the accent color in the logo can be used in website and other graphics.
- We like having the People and insure parts of the logo slightly different (we use Cap/Italic on the people and lower case on the insure – but open to other ways to distinguish the two, such as GoToMeeting’s name in the logo, or CSB’s The Mentalist, or USA’s In Plain Site, etc., etc.)
- Like the lower case “i” being in an interesting font.
- Logo is easy to use with or without the tag line.
- What I don’t like about the logo - - - It’s amature look, doesn’t create a professional or engaging first impression. Times New Roman font.
- We’re are neutral to the lines in the logo.- Since we focus on accelerating success by products and services that help people, process and technology perform better, having 3 elements somehow represented in the logo might be nice. It could be something simple like having the circle made out of 3 separate strokes, possibly different colors, or some 3 elements in the “icon” part of the logo. This is not required for the winning design, just a thought, if it works.- New Design – If you have an idea for a new design, bring it on. We want professional, contemporary, fresh, clean logo that is appealing and garnes respect and trust. Less is more. Plus we don’t like logo’s with too much fine detail – they are hard to resize and look good.- Colors: We want professional colors with the dominant color being blue. The current blue in the PEOPLEinsure and P is #004B8D, “I” auqua is #0096D7, and the yellow dot and lines are cool yellow #FFEA53. Honestly, I am torn between a this blue, or something like 527E99 (the blue line at the bottom of the header on the website) and a rich cobalt or royal blue (must look professional, not garish). Ideas are welcome The accent color (dot) could be the cool yellow, gold or other complementary color. Open to accent blues or other ideas on the "i". As accents will be used on website, Heading colors and in other graphics, the colors should not clash with photos that have a range of blue backgrounds.- Fonts: Professional, Easy to Read, Not Times New Roman. - Layout: This is not required, but a consideration. Our logo is very long because our name is long. When we speak at conferences, we often have to resize it into either a square space or a rectangle 100px wide. I’m not asking for a square logo, but something that resizes well and the tag line is still readable would be great!- Regardless, the winning design must have: - Logo must be highly professional – giving a great first impression that we are experienced, professional and a respected business.
- Logo must include PEOPLEinsure, the tag line, and an element that can be used as an icon in other graphics when we don’t want to use the full logo.
- The tag line “Accelerate Success” must be on a layer that can be include, excluded or replaced in the usage of the logo without diminishing the design.
- The logo must be able to be used in color, black and white and one color (positive/negative - such as printing the logo in a single color on items, such as pens)It must resize well – not so complex that when too small it is indistinguishableThe logo must be easily reproduced for web and print graphics.
- Vector, Adobe Illustrator CS3 non-flattened file so that we can use any of the elements and all the layers (ex: we may animate the logo in flash later on and need to get to each element individually). 2nd copy exported to Photoshop file, fully editable layers.

Don't want

- I don’t want anything amateurish, cheesy, “cartoony” or garish.
- Times New Roman letters – I want a current and professional font
- Too much detail or cluttered look, making it hard to distinguish or resize and look good.
- I like cool colors, not warm. No orange, brown, rust, auburn, etc. (Accent color can be a “cool” yellow or gold, not orange.)